Conventionally, an ink-jet recording method, which carries out a recording operation by emitting and spraying recording fluid, has been known. The ink-jet recording method has achieved various advantages: relatively high-speed printing can be carried out with low noise, the apparatus can be miniaturized, a color recording process is easily carried out, etc.
With respect to ink-jet heads used in the ink-jet recording method, several arrangements have been conventionally proposed. For example, one of such ink-jet heads has an arrangement wherein pressure is applied to the ink indirectly through a diaphragm by subjecting a piezoelectric element to an in-plane deformation resulting in ink emission.
However, the following problems have been presented from the above-mentioned conventional arrangement. In the above-mentioned ink-jet head, the piezoelectric element is subjected to an in-plane deformation in order to obtain sufficient pressure to emit the ink. In this case, in order to emit the ink, the amount of distortion of the piezoelectric element has to be increased by, for example, stacking piezoelectric materials or providing a bimorph-type piezoelectric actuator with a comparatively large dimension. One of the resulting problems is that a piezoelectric element and a pressure chamber, which are far greater in size than the nozzle pitch, are required, making the ink-jet head become bulky as well as making it difficult to form a multi-nozzle head wherein nozzles are integrated. The other problem is that since the pressure is indirectly applied to the ink by vibrating the diaphragm using the piezoelectric element, it is difficult to effectively convert mechanical energy generated by the piezoelectric element into discharging energy of the ink droplets.